Japanimania

Two of the four exhibits opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art Jan.
24 involve things Japanese. Both of them combine ideas from East and West
in interesting ways.

The works of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara take their cues from both Japanese
anime and Western Pop Art. His simultaneously cute and menacing images
of children and his soothing animal pictures, cult favorites in Japan,
receive their first major American display in “Nothing Ever Happens,” which
runs through April 4.

The ICA’s commissioned ramp installation, “Naming Tokyo (Part
III),” is New York artist Aleksandra Mir’s attempt to make
the Japanese megalopolis more user-friendly to the Western visitor by naming
the city’s often confusing streets and neighborhoods.

Opening along with these is the first museum survey of the paintings of
Philadelphia artist Sarah McEneaney and a demonstration of the SmartWrap
building technology developed by local architects KieranTimberlake Associates.

Penn Current Express

Quoted Recently

“As we know from the research, the performance of a large firm is due primarily to things outside the control of the top executive. … We call that luck. Executives freely admit this—when they encounter bad luck.”

—J. Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School, on how executives can influence a company’s value. Limited research on the topic has mostly found that broader market forces often have a bigger impact on a company’s success than an executive’s actions. (The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2015)